I. Clinical Need
General:
Vascular access is a crucial element of medical therapy in a vast majority of clinical settings and procedures. This is true in both elective and in emergent situations. In a specific type of emergency, hemorrhagic shock, there may further be a need to perform aortic occlusion. Both these clinical needs, vascular access and aortic occlusion, are the subject of the current invention.
Vascular Access:
A large part of medical interventions, both elective and emergent, are endovascular procedures. These procedures have become very common and continue to grow in numbers due to both the increase in cardiovascular patient absolute numbers and to the trend of shifting from open surgery to endovascular surgery.
Once vascular access is secured, delivery of treatment is quick and easy, be it the administration of fluids, analgesics, sedative medications, vasopressors, inotropics, percutaneous endovascular trans-catheter treatments or other interventions. Patient monitoring is also aided by central vascular access, as it enables direct arterial or venous pressure measurements and blood sampling.
Vascular Access in Elective Situations:
Although extremely common, the ways to establish vascular access remain very basic and are often inadequate. This is especially unfortunate in elective settings, as it is those older and sicker individuals who usually have more “difficult blood vessels”, and must frequently endure additional suffering caused by painful repeated attempts at blood vessel cannulation, even when performed by experienced personnel.
Vascular Access in Emergency Situations:
In emergency situations, the importance of vascular access is increased, as stabilization of patients often requires administration of fluids or blood and medications. However, the emergency setting also increases the obstacles to successful blood vessel cannulation. Possible impediments include environmental factors such as darkness (night), cold and wet weather, unstable surroundings (wind, waves, bumpy vehicle or aircraft), patient factors such as shock which may cause collapse of veins and an impalpable arterial pulse, burns, or movements due to shivering or convulsions, care provider factors such as stress caused by the need to deliver therapy urgently in a dying patient, additional patients, imminent danger from warfare or natural hazards, or lack of expertise, and finally equipment factors such as the absence of expensive ultrasound guidance. A venous cut down may be performed using simple tools by an experienced physician, but this too takes time and requires expertise, making it impractical in many cases.
Aortic Occlusion:
Massive hemorrhage remains the major cause of death in the battlefield. Approximately 50% of combat deaths are due to exsanguinating hemorrhage, and 80% of these are from non-compressible torso injuries. Champion H. R., et al., “A profile of combat injury,” A. J Trauma, 2003; 54(5 Suppl):S13-9; Blackbourne, L. H. et al., “Exsanguination Shock: The Next Frontier in Prevention of Battlefield Mortality,” Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care, 2011; 7:S1-S3. The pathophysiology of death in these cases involves incompletely understood cellular, inflammatory, and hematologic pathways. Blackburne et al. Whatever the processes involved, large volume blood loss is a major factor, and more effective control of hemorrhage is key to improving outcomes. Rabinovici R., et al., “Control of bleeding is essential for a successful treatment of hemorrhagic shock with 7.5 percent sodium chloride solution,” Surg Gynecol Obstet. 1991; 173(2):98-106. Clearly, new modalities of treatment for exsanguination shock are required.
II. Current Practice
Current Practice of Vascular Access:
In performing an endovascular procedure, access into the vasculature must be established and maintained for the duration of the procedure. This is most commonly done by placing an introducer sheath in the blood vessel to enable passage of the interventional instruments in and out without losing the entry point or causing damage to the vessel.
Placement of an endovascular sheath is usually performed using the modified Seldinger technique. This entails puncture of the vessel with a needle, passage of a guide-wire through the needle, removal of the needle, incision of the skin, placement of a sheath with a dilator in it over the guide-wire, removal of the guide-wire and dilator.
The Seldinger technique, although useful, suffers from several drawbacks. First, it requires significant experience in order to be successfully performed, especially when circumstances are suboptimal such as in emergency and trauma situations. As it is mainly used for placement of large bore catheters, which are less common than regular small-medium bore venous catheters, the exposure to it (and hence the procedure practice) is less than that of over the needle venous catheter placement. Second, there are several points during the procedure which may lead to its failure.
One such point is after entry of the needle into the blood vessel, which is evident by the flow of blood out of the needle. At this point, the physician must thread a guide-wire into the needle. Holding the needle absolutely still, while bringing the guide-wire and threading it with the other hand requires a certain level of coordination, which not all physicians possess. Even the slightest movement of the needle at this stage might cause it to move forward and exit the artery through its posterior wall, or withdraw out of the lumen through the anterior wall of the artery. This will prevent the guide wire from entering the lumen and will require an additional puncture attempt. Additionally, this might cause blood to leak around the vessel causing an internal hematoma, which might compress the vessel and make repeat cannulation more difficult. Worse yet, unintended movement of the needle might place it within one of the arterial walls, and attempted insertion of the guide wire can then damage the arterial wall, possibly leading to large hematomas or other complications.
Another sensitive point in the procedure is after the guide-wire insertion and needle removal. The physician must now thread the guide-wire edge into the dilator, which has a very small aperture the size of the guide-wire, while at the same time compressing the puncture site to prevent hematoma and make sure the guide-wire is not pulled out. Exit of the guide-wire from the artery at this stage will cause the sheath to be placed into tissues instead of into the artery, which besides tissue damage usually causes the guide-wire to bend, necessitating its replacement.
Additional drawbacks of the Seldinger technique are related to the use of a long guide-wire, which carries with it an increased risk of contamination of its proximal end, as well as a danger of splashing blood at the physician. Also, during the time between needle entry into the vessel and until the guide-wire is inserted into it, either profuse bleeding or entry of air into the circulation might occur, depending on whether pressure within the vessel is higher or lower than ambient pressure.
In contrast to the above, regular small to medium bore venous cannulas are usually placed using the over the needle technique. With this technique, the cannula, which has an inner diameter (“ID”) matched to the outer diameter (“OD”) of the needle, is inserted into the artery together with the needle. When blood is observed in a “flash” chamber connected to the needle lumen, the needle is held in place and the cannula is manually advanced and slid over the needle into the vessel. Not only is this technique technically simpler than the Seldinger technique, it is also more commonly used, and there is a greater possibility of exposure to it for training, so the learning curve is significantly shorter and competence in it is easier to maintain.
In the “over-the-needle” method, the cannula must have an ID matched to the OD of the needle, in order for it to enter the vessel with the needle. Therefore, the diameters of cannulas inserted using this technique are limited to the outer diameters of needles that can be used for these purposes, which are usually 21 G-18 G (0.8 mm-1.3 mm). Endovascular procedures often require insertion of instruments having ODs of 8 Fr-14 Fr (2 mm-4.6 mm) or more.
Since the “over-the-needle” technique is not adequate for placing large bore catheters or sheaths, the Seldinger technique is used in these cases, which as mentioned, include most endovascular interventions.
The WAND, manufactured by Access Scientific of San Diego, Calif., is a device intended to provide a solution for the above drawbacks of the Seldinger technique. This device includes a needle, guide-wire, dilator, and sheath in an all-in-one assembly, which is intended for easier and safer over-the-wire sheath insertion. Use of the WAND requires manual advancement of both the guidewire and the sheath by the operator. The WAND mainly addresses safety issues such as needle-stick injury and air embolism but the technique is still rather complicated and requires significant training.
Another drawback of existing sheaths related to their having a fixed diameter, is that the arterial puncture site remains dilated to the maximum size for the whole duration of the procedure. The duration of puncture site dilation is one of the factors affecting the chances of its closure. With the current invention, the artery would only be exposed to maximal dilation when the largest instruments are used, while during the rest of the procedure, it will be only slightly dilated. This will increase the successful closure rates and reduce puncture site complication rates.
Expandable sheaths were described in the art in various contexts, mainly for retrieval of large devices, such as e.g. heart valve delivery systems, aortic balloon catheters etc., usually having a self-expanding and/or balloon expandable components. Such solutions are cumbersome and expensive and are not appropriate for direct over the needle vascular access. An expandable sheath that is intended for insertion over a needle, can enlarge its ID by at least 250%, has a simple structure, is easy to use, and is cheap to manufacture has not yet been described.
Therefore, an aspect of the current invention is to provide a simple, safe, easy to use, and low cost solution for establishing vascular access.
Current Practice of Aortic Occlusion
The currently accepted paradigm for trauma treatment is “scoop and run”: patients are evacuated as soon as possible to a medical facility without wasting time on their stabilization, usually arriving within minutes. When a patient with penetrating trauma arrives at the Emergency Department (“ED”) with recent loss of vital signs, Emergency Department Thoracotomy (“EDT”) is indicated. EDT is a “last resort” procedure attempting temporary stabilization of patients to enable their rapid transfer to the operating room or angiography suite for administration of definitive care. The procedure involves an anterior lateral thoracotomy, which allows achieving the following objectives: (a) release pericardial tamponade; (b) control cardiac hemorrhage; (c) control intrathoracic bleeding; (d) evacuate massive air embolism; (e) perform open cardiac massage; and (f) temporarily occlude the descending thoracic aorta. Combined, these objectives attempt to address the primary issue of cardiovascular collapse from mechanical sources or extreme hypovolemia. Cothren C. C. and Moore, E. A., “Emergency department thoracotomy for the critically injured patient: Objectives, indications, and outcomes,” World J Emerg Surg., 2006; 1:4.
In cases of exsanguination due to extrathoracic penetrating torso trauma (i.e. abdominal, pelvic, junctional), the main reason to perform EDT is for aortic clamping. The rationale for temporary thoracic aortic occlusion in the patient with massive hemorrhage is two-fold. First, in patients with hemorrhagic shock, aortic cross clamping redistributes the patient's limited blood volume to the myocardium and brain. Second, patients sustaining intraabdominal injury may benefit from aortic cross clamping due to reduction in subdiaphragmatic blood loss.
Paradoxically, patients who undergo EDT because of shock due to penetrating cardiac injury, fare better (up to 50% survival rates, average 35%) than those with exsanguination shock due to all penetrating injuries (average survival 15%) or due to blunt trauma (2% survival). Cothren C. C. and Moore, E. A., “Emergency department thoracotomy for the critically injured patient: Objectives, indications, and outcomes,” World J Emerg Surg., 2006; 1:4. This may in part be because EDT is an aggressive procedure, and its invasive nature and associated morbidity limit its therapeutic potential.
Possible risks and complications of EDT include: technical complications which may include but are not limited to: unintentional injury to the heart, coronary arteries, aorta, phrenic nerves, esophagus, and lungs, avulsion of aortic branches to components of the mediastinum; compromised respiratory function; increased risk for hypothermia; recurrent chest bleeding; infection of the pericardium, pleural spaces, sternum, and chest wall; post-pericardiotomy syndrome; and high risk of personnel exposure to HIV or hepatitis.
III. Endovascular Aortic Occlusion (EAO)
Although first reported during the Korean war (Assar, A. N. et al., “Endovascular proximal control of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms: the internal aortic clamp,” J Cardiovasc Surg (Torino), 2009; 50:381-5), interest in EAO has re-emerged during the past decade as an alternative to EDT for hemorrhagic shock due to extrathoracic torso injuries.
Animal research provides support for this approach. A recent porcine study demonstrated improved survival with EAO compared to no occlusion. Avaro, J-P. et al., “Forty-Minute Endovascular Aortic Occlusion Increases Survival in an Experimental Model of Uncontrolled Hemorrhagic Shock Caused by Abdominal Trauma,” Journal of Trauma-Injury Infection & Critical Care, 2011; 71:720-726. The superiority of EAO over open clamping for hemorrhagic shock was demonstrated in another recent study in a porcine model of hemorrhagic shock. EAO increased central perfusion pressures with less physiologic disturbance than thoracotomy with aortic clamping. White, J. M. et al., “Endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta is superior to resuscitative thoracotomy with aortic clamping in a porcine model of hemorrhagic shock,” Surgery, 2011; 150:400-9.
Use of EAO in humans for treatment or prevention of massive hemorrhage was described in various clinical situations such as blunt trauma with pelvic fractures (Martinelli, T. et al. “Intra-aortic balloon occlusion to salvage patients with life-threatening hemorrhagic shocks from pelvic fractures,” J Trauma, 2010; 68(4):942-8), ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (Cothren C. C. and Moore, E. A., “Emergency department thoracotomy for the critically injured patient: Objectives, indications, and outcomes,” World J Emerg Surg., 2006; 1:4), obstetric hemorrhage (Bell-Thomas, S. M. et al., “Emergency use of a transfemoral aortic occlusion catheter to control massive haemorrhage at caesarean hysterectomy,” BJOG, 2003; 110:1120-2) and sacral tumor resection (Tang, X et al. “Use of Aortic Balloon Occlusion to Decrease Blood Loss During Sacral Tumor Resection”, The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery., 2010; 92:1747-1753) (see also FIG. 3). The above-mentioned reports as well as other available data provide ample support for use of EAO to control acute massive extrathoracic hemorrhage.
When using traditional equipment, EAO requires experience with endovascular techniques and specialized equipment such as fluoroscopy, both of which are usually unavailable in the resource limited battlefield environment or even in the ED.
In one aspect of the invention tools, devices, systems and methods are provided which enable rapid, safe, and effective deployment of endovascular occlusion for controlling hemorrhagic shock at the point of injury. In an additional aspect of the invention, such tools, etc. would be easy to use for inexperienced personnel such as doctors who are unfamiliar with endovascular techniques, paramedics, and possibly battlefield medics. Another objective is to provide such devices that are relatively simple and cheap to manufacture.
Therefore, an additional aspect of the current invention is to provide a simple, safe, easy to use, and low cost solution for the above need and for other applications.